Roadblocks to Withdrawal: An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg about Iraq
Two obstacles stand in the way of the prompt and safe return of US troops from Iraq, according to Daniel Ellsberg. First, a real “mission accomplished” is unlikely any time soon. Second, President Bush doesn’t want their prompt return.
By Brad Kennedy
December 9, 2005
Two obstacles stand in the way of the prompt and safe return of US troops from Iraq, according to Daniel Ellsberg. First, a real “mission accomplished” is unlikely any time soon. Second, President Bush doesn’t want their prompt return.
Ellsberg disavows claim to expertise in Mid-Eastern affairs, but without question he has deep experience with wars of insurgency and with embattled American presidents. He incurred the ire of President Richard Nixon by making public the Department of Defense’s secret history of the Vietnam War, commonly known as the Pentagon Papers, which he helped compile. His firsthand knowledge of our Vietnam policy serves as his prism for viewing our involvement in Iraq, and it reveals disturbing parallels.
Ellsberg aired his views publicly several times in New Jersey, starting November 12, 2005 at a fund-raiser for New Jersey Peace Action and moving on to local colleges, and he sat for a 90-minute interview to round out his views for this article. His appearances are part of the promotion of his long-awaited personal account, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. (New York: Penguin Books, 2003)
The Fatal Flaw
In Ellsberg’s view, the fatal flaw of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has always been that it made the US an occupying power vulnerable to a war of insurgency. He’s hardly out of step when he asserts this. Military chroniclers since Julius Caesar have bemoaned the risks and hardships of occupation. Avoiding these very perils governed US policy during the first Gulf War, recalls Gen. Brent Scowcroft. The president’s National Security Advisor at that time, Scowcroft said in a recent New Yorker interview that President Bush, ’41, had no trouble grasping the risks of extending the war to Baghdad. Since World War II only one outside power, the British in Malaysia, has fought a successful counter-insurgency war. Whatever magic Sir Robert Thompson, the mastermind of that British effort, may have possessed failed to rub off on the US effort in Vietnam during his separate stints advising both Presidents Kennedy and Nixon.
Snip…
Ellsberg readily acknowledges American troop withdrawal to be a painful solution but, he says there are no good solutions. Great pain may accompany US withdrawal, but that pain largely will be the inevitable consequence of the improper strategy of occupation at the outset, just as is the pain suffered on a daily basis in Iraq now.
Withdrawal is the solution, not the problem. It is the only solution because “there isn’t going to be any improvement if the US stays in Iraq.” As both a participant in and a careful student of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg is no stranger to such pain. He understands the hardships and sacrifices American troops suffer every day trying to improve the lives of Iraqis and to make the world safer. He saw plenty of the same in Vietnam.
He also saw what happens when you refuse to face the realities of the battlefield and execute an orderly withdrawal, such as the pandemonium engulfing the evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon in ’75. Snip…
Once again, Ellsberg appears less out of step than out front by advocating withdrawal of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq as the December elections approach there. Clearly, there is no more “cut and run” in Ellsberg, a former Marine officer, than there is in John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam vet who retired as a colonel in the Marine Reserves….
Snip…
At the Iraqi reconciliation conference on Nov. 21st in Cairo, sponsored by the Arab League, the Iraqi factions memorialized the one point upon which they could agree: “a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces.” So, the Army, the Iraqis, Ellsberg and Murtha agree withdrawal of some sort is necessary, with the latter two holding that withdrawal should be immediate and independent of events controlled by the Iraqis.
Why Bush Won’t Budge
Where Ellsberg stands apart is by asserting that President Bush and his advisors are the obstacle to a timely, safe return of US troops. “The problem is that the President wants to stay. You have to want to get out, and he’s not remotely interested in hearing about it.”
Snip…
Another Rand Corporation analyst—a former one—Daniel Ellsberg, summed up where he thought this would lead: “We are going to be in Iraq far longer than we were in Vietnam, because there was no oil in Vietnam.”
Not that this is just about oil, it is about anti-terrorism, too. The essence of the Bush policy is a meld of plentiful oil and anti-terrorism. Right or wrong, the White House Iraq Group believes we cannot confront the bankers of Bin Laden, because they are also our local filling station. We will only be free to stand up to the Saudis when we are less dependent on their gas pumps. This must have put the Bush family’s personal relationship with the royal Saudi family to the test.
There is a larger problem, though. The pipeline Iraq can offer the US will be secure only as long as it is secured, and that means US military bases, perhaps “over-the horizon,” as Murtha suggests, but bases for the foreseeable future nonetheless.
Snip…
A Matter of Means
The strategy of permanent or enduring bases, for all its tactical advantages, is but a variant of occupation, subject to the various hazards and risks intrinsic to occupation. As time passes and construction on these bases progresses, the intent of the US will be less a matter of words and more a matter of fact verifiable by the Islamic eye. About the same time the US mission in Iraq will emerge from the shadows into the light of day and the American people will have a fundamental choice to make. Americans will finally see that choice as not about the ends or purposes of the Iraq mission, but about the means used to achieve them. Everyone can applaud plentiful oil and effective anti-terrorism, but it is the means that will determine if the US achieves those goals and at what cost.
Snip...
All that is in the past now. But what unintended consequences will America’s future actions bring? It is the future about which Daniel Ellsberg worries.
“I’m afraid we are looking at a widening of the war right now to Iran and Syria.” http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2062&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 Analysis:
Gist of the article above: Withdrawal is the only solution and Bush has no intention of carrying out that solution.
I'm no expert on any of this stuff, but from a common sense reading, this is one of the best overall pictures of the Iraq situation by far. Ellsberg’s understanding of the complexities of the situation and implied endorsement by the VAIW by inclusion on their site gives the report much credence.
It's great that Ellsberg acknowledges up front his lack of expertise in Middle Eastern affairs. No doubt, Kerry's experience in foreign affairs would allows him to fill in the gaps.
Ellsberg clearly supports immediate withdrawal---a variant of Murtha's plan---while pointing out that it should be accomplished safely, in contrast to the precarious withdrawal from Vietnam. And while he says immediate the article further points out that it will take time to accomplish this.
As Ellsberg explains why Bush's foray into this debacle over oil, he mentions the terrorist bank network. Again, Kerry not only has expertise in this area, but he also helped to define it.
Then the crux of the "over the horizon" is revealed: it is a "variant of occupation," better known as permanent bases. And in a region where anti-American sentiment was already high (in countries that are perceived allies—Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are leading examples), Bush has managed to single-handedly exhaust nearly every bit of America’s goodwill and give rise to the widespread appeal of fundamentalism (Egypt, most recent example). Where does the US set up these bases that will ultimately diffuse this thinking and allay the potential for, as Ellsberg suggests, "a widening of the war right now to Iran and Syria"?
Kerry’s expertise—his knowledge of the region, his understanding of America's reliance on oil, his experience in Vietnam, his prosecution of the BCCI case, his respect for people and cultures—points to exactly why his plan addresses all these difficult realities so well.
As Kerry mentioned, America needs to remove itself from the internal conflict in the Arab world and go about the business of repairing relations.
Real Security in the Post 9/11 World
http://www.kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=249580 (Highlights from the speech)
The real war on terror is an even bigger challenge. It is a war that has drawn us smack into the middle of an internal struggle in the Islamic World. It is fundamentally a war within Islam for the heart and soul of Islam, stretching from Morocco East to Indonesia. -It leads, ultimately, to a struggle for the transformation of the Greater Middle East into a region that is no longer isolated from the global economy, no longer dependent on despotism for stability, no longer fearful of freedom, and no longer content to feed restive and rising populations of unemployed young people a diet of illusions, excuses, and dead end government jobs.
As the 2004 Arab Human Development Report tells us, “By 21st century standards, Arab countries have not met the Arab people’s aspirations for development, security and liberation … Indeed, there is a near-complete consensus that there is a serious failing in the Arab world …located specifically in the political sphere.” And in addition, in regions where the mosque remains the only respected alternative to the autocratic state structures, there is no credible secular alternative. So we are caught in a cauldron of religious struggle where today there is no center of moral authority that forcefully condemns those who murder in the name of Islam.
In the long run–and we’re in this for the long run-the war on terror cannot be won without the successful transformation of the Greater Middle East, and especially its Arab core. And our strategy must do what it takes to increase the internal demand for change in that region.
That means we are in a war of ideas and ideologies–but ultimately a war that must be fought and won within the Islamic world. That means we have a huge stake in finding partners in the Arab world who are willing not only to support the transformation of the Middle East, but to reestablish the broad and unchallenged moral authority needed to isolate and defeat terrorists.
And ultimately, that means we must liberate ourselves and the Middle East itself from the tyranny of dependence on petroleum, which has frustrated every impulse towards modernization of the region, while giving its regimes the resources to hold onto power. snip...
So this is the long range mission in the war on terror:
one, make sure the right side wins the war of ideas within the Islamic world;
two, build up diversified economies and civil society; and,
three, end the empire of oil. These three challenges make it abundantly clear this is not a war the United States should fight alone.
snip...
In the critical days after Saddam's regime collapsed, we got just about everything wrong. You know the list: failing to seal the borders and prevent sabotage of critical infrastructure; creating a formal occupation; privatizing the reconstruction; disbanding the entire Iraqi security structure; and on and on. No one in the administration has been fired for these mistakes, but our courageous troops, and the Iraqi people, are paying a high price for them every day. snip...
I’ve set out a series of steps we should take to eliminate the perception of a permanent military occupation, to achieve the political solution our generals say we need to weaken the insurgency, to isolate the foreign jihadists, and to bring Iraq stability. snip...
The right rhetoric's not enough. Statements of "resolve" are not enough. We need skill as well as resolve, and a strategy as well as an attitude. snip...
Harry Truman was an uncomplicated man. Yet he was also a man who believed he should be held personally accountable for every decision and every judgment, every day, not just on election days.
At the end of one great war against totalitarianism and at the beginning of another, Harry Truman presided over the greatest era of bipartisan, multi-lateral foreign policy our country or the world has ever seen. It’s time for the President to put a little more Harry Truman in his foreign policy. And if he won't, then those who admire Harry Truman will keep up the fight at home, in order to win the fight against terrorism around the world. And we'll be joined by other Americans and, I hope, by leaders in organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations, who understand this is a fight we dare not lose. More than that, it is a fight we must win.
Senator John Kerry Lays Out Path Forward in Iraq
If Administration Acts Responsibly, We Can Stabilize Iraq and Reduce Combat Forces With Successful December Elections, Draw Down 20,000 Troops by the End of 2005
Senator John Kerry "The Path Forward" Georgetown University October 26, 2005 As prepared for delivery
http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=247764 
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